Category Archives: Linux

I’ve got a company laptop for the weekend and wanted to take Ubuntu 9.10 for a spin. Using wubi (and then later uninstalling it) would probably have worked, but I haven’t used the latest version of VMWare, so let’s have a look at how well the new VMWare 7 handles the equally new Ubuntu distro with Easy Install.

Based on the disk image I chose, VMWare Workstation already knew I was installing Ubuntu. It prompted me for my full name, desired username, and password. Next thing I know VMWare Workstation is blowing past any of the usual prompts during the bootup process of a Ubuntu install and formatting the partition.

Another linux zealot at my old job gave me the heads up on this, it’s directly from gnome-cups-manager, and I thought you would all enjoy it. If you’re not aware, the readme file is for a Gnome graphical front-end for a tool used to manage print queues and adding printers/etc.

The only question is what illicit substances were not consumed during the writing of this file.

gnome-cups-manager
——————

Once upon a time there was a printer who lived in the woods. He was a lonely printer, because nobody knew how to configure him. He hoped and hoped for someone to play with.

One day, the wind passed by the printer’s cottage. “Whoosh,” said the wind. The printer became excited. Maybe the wind would be his friend!

Building a carputer the most difficult, expensive and rewarding do-it-yourself (DIY) projects I have ever completed. If you own a car manufactured in the last 20 years, the chances are it has a specialized computer inside – the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) is a computer which originally only controlled fuel injection. In today’s cars, the ECU is responsible for more than just controlling the powertrain. Many standard features of cars produced today are monitored by the ECU, including emissions control, fuel saving, airbags, ABS braking systems, climate control, and many more. In a few short weeks I’ve found it to be the best investment I have made in my car. On the surface, the idea is simple, just take a computer put it in the car. In reality, it is several times more difficult than installing a car alarm or replacing a factory head unit with an aftermarket radio. Before you start, you need to ask yourself six questions:

How much can you spend?
What computer hardware do you need?
How will you interact with the computer?
How will the computer be powered?
Do you want any special features?
Where is everything going to fit inside the car?
Let’s find out.

Those are some fantastic deals! His claims of up to 75 percent off retail is amazingly quite accurate. If I were to buy a copy of each piece of software he is offering for a mere $655, I would have spent right about $2800. By shopping with Michael, I would have saved 76.6%.

The problem is, I didn’t want any of the software he was offering. He says in his email that if he doesn’t have it, he’ll get it. I’ve been needing to get a copy of Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit Server Edition, but haven’t quite got around to it yet, so I sent our new buddy Michael an email asking if he could provide a legal copy for me.

Date: Fri, May 23, 2008 at 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: Software

Michael,

I’m not very technical so please bear with me. My technical support said I need several legal copies (very important they are legal because this is for my business) of Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit Server Edition.

Can you supply that? You have very good prices, so hopefully you can get me a good deal.

-Wayne

Strangely enough, I got a reply just a short while later!

I don’t have that in house so will have to go shopping. Get back to you soon.

In a short 15 minutes he found what I needed and helpfully provided a download location for me.

Yes, I can supply it and you are going to like the price. It is 100% legal.

Haha! I absolutely love playing the village idiot screwing around with folks… in other news, I’ve been extremely busy for the last few weeks. I’m moving 1500 miles to Texas for a new job. I’ll be the IT ninja for an amazingly kickass game developer in Austin.

The last bit of news I have is that fsckin w/ linux is going to see its 1 millionth unique visitor today! As of this moment we’re right about 3,000 away, which is not much at all, should happen by about lunchtime. I was planning to throw a party in celebration, but unfortunately I’ll be finishing up packing instead of having a few beers with friends and family.

Ahh well. I’d rather have a new job than a silly party.

Thanks to everyone who has ever promoted my site in any way, whether it be a digg here, a comment there, or a link with a quick blurb — without you I’d never see a million visitors in a paltry 9 months. I’m absolutely astounded by how many opportunities fsckin w/ linux has given me on a professional and personal level. Thank you again, and have a few beers for me, alright?

Ladies and germs, it’s been too long since I’ve got anything up here, so I figured it would be good to post a short update on what I’ve been up to this week. The Novell v. SCO trial is ending tomorrow, and I’ve been attending it the last couple days.

It’s pretty damn interesting, to say the least. If you’ve never heard one of the old guys talking about UNIX, you’re missing out. There’s so much public information available, but to actually hear things explained by the perpetrators and see and hear evidence that has never been made public before is really eye opening.Continue reading Reporting from the fsckin trenches – Novell v. SCO trial→

This might be old news to some folks, but for those of you who want to get a “real” pressed CD, Shipit has been offering to ship CDs of the still unreleased Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 when it is available. Highly recommended for the Ubuntu fan.

A member of several Ubuntu collaboration teams, including Ubuntu-Artwork has recreated the ubiquitous Human Theme for the iPhone. He plans on updating it for a simultaneous release with Hardy Heron. I was able to catch up with the creator and ask him a few questions.

1. Tell me a little about yourself.
I’m just a computer science major and open source fan.

2. Why did you make it?
For integration with my desktop experience (even though I don’t use stock Ubuntu wallpapers)

3. How long have you been using ubuntu on the desktop?
Exclusively, since 6.06. And happily 🙂

There you have it… my quick “Ubuntu tagged” post for the week.

Also, as a side note, the 8.04 Release Candidate has been… released. Get it while it’s hot. Oh, and by the way… I can now offer a free full year of PC Magazine for qualified professionals – check it out, it’s been a real hit so far.

I’ve been occasionally looking for something in Linux that would spruce up the place. Right now, my desktop is an minimalistic and functional solid black background. I’d like to do more with the space. Not just put up an image as a background – that’s straight from the late 80s.

The Mario desktop I would like to install on my Desktop is a perfect example of things that “just work” in Windows don’t seem to be possible in Linux. Until today, I didn’t know if there was a way to set my Ubuntu desktop with a HTML file with animation and graphics. In Windows, it’s a really simple operation… add the HTML location to your “Active Desktop,” place in on your desk where you’d like then lock down the widget.

For Linux there’s something far, far more powerful called xwinwrap. It allows you to run (most) any application as a desktop background. Really sweet, just check out some video:

This is really cool, but what if you need to change settings for something else? Here’s the lowdown on what each command switch does – and there are a LOT of them. One wrong or missing switch will completely change the behavior of the program.

Want to help me write articles and receive credit where it’s due? (Thanks Oli for the heads up on xwinwrap! – Check out his blog, while you’re at it.) Anyways, the point I was trying to make is to follow me on Twitter, answer my occasional random questions, and get kudos. Oh, and njpatel also pointed it out to me. Check out his blog too. 🙂

Please don’t drink and use xwinwrap. With great power, comes great responsibility. fsckin w/ linux is not liable for damages caused by shopping carts. this message was approved by justf**kinggoogleit.

MAKE blogged about plants that notify the owner via text message or Twitter status update that they need water, and even thank their owners when they’re watered.

This got me thinking – why not a cat who sends a tweet when he’s eating? While I’m at it, why not toss in a video stream? After all, everyone loves videos of their cat. My ASUS eeePC runs eeexubuntu and has a webcam – all I would need to do to get my cat twittering is setup some motion sensing software that detects movement from the webcam, records a video, and upload to my server and then notifies me.

First, a proper “cat studio” is required. I picked up a laundry basket, some thin anti-slip mat and a couple of new food bowls for under $15 total. The laundry basked got a side removed by my trusty Dremel tool, and the anti-slip mat was cut to fit and hot-glued in place. After that was done, I had a spare light fixture with a clamp lying around to add to the mix for better lighting.

Motion is a great webcam application that fits my needs exactly. More specifically, when it detects motion, it records a video – think like a security camera, but way, way smarter. When Motion no longer senses any movement after a defined period of time, it encodes the captured video, and then it can run a script or set of commands afterwards. Bingo!

Here’s how I did it, after hours of trial and error:
1. Installed Motion 3.2.9
2. Configured and tweaked /etc/motion/motion.conf (probably still some changes needed)
3. Setup SSH to allow logins to my web server without a password.
4. Added the following to execute when a recording is finished:
Upload the file (using cat, of course!):

This videos loop over and over. Also – if a video is uploading at the same time that someone is loading the page, it might break. If you don’t see video, just count to 10 and refresh the page. If you still get nothing, bookmark this on del.icio.us and come back later.

Note: Audio is not yet supported by Motion, however, an experimental patch enables this already and should be be in the next version. This is a proof of concept, and it will probably be running for at least the next week – after that, who knows. All I know is after I’m long forgotten, Bubba will live in perpetuity as truly the first cat who uploaded videos of himself eating and sending tweets to his human slaves.